Virtually every car has a cassette-radio unit. Car radio theft is an acknowledged problem, one that is not a problem isolated to inner cities or high performance cars with high fidelity sound systems. Replacing a stolen radio and repairing interior damage is a costly prospect for the owner.
It is an accepted fact that by removing the radio-cassette unit from view there is an added degree of deterrence against car break-in and radio-cassette unit theft.
A sophisticated type of cassette loading system known as "soft load" or "mechanical load" or "motorized transport" is presently being used in car radio-cassette units. One such type of soft-load unit is manufactured by Matsushita Communication Industrial Co., Ltd., Japan, as Model No. SOA416E121 mounted in the Suburu automobile. The soft-load system is designed to utilize the standard design of a cassette. The standard cassette has one raised side defining a series of holes including a central hole. The user end loads a cassette into the cassette recess of a radio-cassette unit with the raised side being keyed into a keyway of the aperture of the cassette recess on the right as viewed by the user. A biasable narrow engaging finger in the radio-cassette unit grips the cassette at the middle hole. The inner end of the cassette at this time triggers a switch in the cassette recess that controls a driver such as a motor operatively connected to a radio-cassette unit cassette carrier, which is mounted to the engaging finger. This latter event activates the motor, which pulls the cassette carrier in an inward direction along with the engaging finger. The cassette is likewise pulled inwardly to the end of the cassette recess, whereupon the cassette is forced down by a pressing mechanism to the play position. Upon termination of the tape the cassette is pressed up where the engaging finger again grips the cassette at the middle hole and the driver then pushes the cassette carrier along with the cassette outwardly until the outer end of the cassette extends beyond the aperture of the cassette recess of the radio-cassette unit, where the user can pull the cassette from the cassette recess.